We are deeply troubled by the recent breaking news about secret payouts to state employees that appear to have violated state procedures which are supposed to protect taxpayers from paying out frivolous claims.

We support the valiant efforts of leaders like Republican State Senator Sander Rue who fight every day to make New Mexico’s state government transparent and accountable to the people. In order to create and maintain transparency, we call upon our state government leaders, that include the Governor and the Attorney General, to take action to unseal these secret agreements.

New Mexico has a long and troubling history of public corruption and secret deals like the ones we are hearing about this week only make our state’s reputation worse and prevents us from achieving our full potential. Regardless of which party is in power, we must enforce our public record laws and be willing to have a conversation about which laws need to be improved in order to allow the sunshine in for our state.